It is now widely accepted that the majority of invasive cervical cancers and high grade cancer precursor lesions are associated with "high and to a lesser extent intermediate oncogenic-risk" types of HPV 1-4!. Despite the close association between the "high oncogenic-risk" HPV types and the development of cervical disease, testing for these viruses has not been incorporated in clinical practice. The reluctance to adopt HPV testing in clinical practice has been attributed to a number of factors including the lack of a specific, sensitive and easy to perform assay for detecting "high oncogenic-risk" HPVs. For example, in some clinical series over 50% of women with invasive cervical cancer have been HPV DNA negative using various HPV tests 5-8!. Moreover, other assays that have been used to identify "high oncogenic-risk" types of HPV such as Southern blot hybridization or PCR amplification followed by a dot blot or gel electrophoresis of the PCR products to identify amplified HPV sequences are frequently considered to be too complicated and expensive for routine clinical use 9, 10!.